China has submitted its formal pledge to the UN climate negotiations. China’s target is a 60–65 percent reduction in the emissions intensity of its economy compared to 2005 levels by 2030, with carbon dioxide emissions peaking around 2030, and ‘best efforts’ made to peak earlier. China’s pledge will require a sustained policy effort, and it tallies with underlying trends in the economy and with overarching national policy priorities.

The financial woes in Greece are not the sole crisis dividing European states. Tensions over how to deal with thousands of migrants landing in the Mediterranean have spilled over as domestic political pressures threaten ideals of unity. Angela Merkel calls it “the biggest challenge in European affairs” in her time as chancellor.

On October 2 2013, after months of extensive joint federal investigations, the FBI arrested Ross William Ulbricht (aka “Dread Pirate Roberts") for his role in leading a major online criminal enterprise.

In May, Ulbricht – now 31 years old – was sentenced to life in prison without parole after being convicted on multiple felony charges in connection with his operation of the Silk Road website, which had become an anonymous black market for drugs and other illegal items.

The synchronised but separate 50th anniversary celebrations of the Japan–South Korea Treaty on Basic Relations illustrate the relationship between the two countries: inexorably close and painfully distant. The 22 June 2015 celebrations were quite unusual. There was no summit meeting, but two parallel ceremonies with President Park Geun-hye attending in Seoul and Prime Minister Shinzo Abe in Tokyo.

Celebrity activism and support for African humanitarian causes – such as the Enough Project, Akon’s Lighting Africa and Kony 2012 – has become mainstream. However, what are the consequences, and is this something we necessarily want to promote?

Recent events along the Indo–Myanmar border have proven that India’s Narendra Modi government has a different playbook when it comes to pro-active responses against groups that harm Indian national interests.

UNICEF, the United Nations Children’s Fund, has warned that despite rapid progress in reductions of poverty and deprivation among children worldwide, disparities are still growing. The most marginalised children in some of the world’s poorest countries may have actually been left behind.

China has an emigration problem. Corrupt officials have decamped to all corners of the world and the Chinese Communist Party wants to haul them home. Australia should help China investigate these officials, but should try suspects in Australia rather than extradite them to China.

Japan has received some sharp criticism following the G7 meeting in June 2015 for its stance on climate change. Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe announced a target of cutting greenhouse gas emissions of 26 percent below 2013 emission levels by 2030, which is equivalent to 18 percent less than 1990 emissions. If replicated globally, this would fall short of what is needed to keep the risk of catastrophic climate change to reasonable levels.